Spaghetti Sauce
by Expression812
Summary: A one shot of Mike and Harvey just interacting, there's really no plot.


Spaghetti Sauce

**This is kind of a drabble of Mike and Harvey just interacting really, there really isn't a plot.**

Harvey stood at the stove stirring the red sauce in as it began bubbling and glanced at the pot of water, ordering it to boil with his eyes.

"Watch pots never boil, Harvey." Mike commented as he snuck behind him to the refrigerator. Harvey snorted.

"That is a testament to your lack of patience, not a scientific fact." Harvey said, challenging his lover.

Mike smiled, "In for a battle of whit with the master tonight, are we?"

"If by master, you're referring to me, then yes." Harvey scoffed, turning to face Mike, who was seated at the bar of Harvey's kitchen, his head in his hand as he propped his elbow on the granite counter, looking completely unimpressed.

Harvey turned back to the stove, "I liked it better when you used to afraid of me."

"You mean when I thought you were gunna give me up to the police?" Mike countered smiling.

Harvey looked over his shoulder to fix Mike with a look, "You're honestly telling me that you've never been afraid of me?"

Mike paused before answering, giving it some thought. "No, I was scared of Jessica, if that helps."

Harvey shrugged, "Everyone's afraid of Jessica."

Mike just nodded and stood to go look at what Harvey was stirring. "Ew," he said grimacing.

"What? It's just spaghetti sauce out of a can, how could I mess that up?" Harvey questioned.

"You got the kind with the fake meat in it, nasty." Mike turned around. "You know, when I was a kid, my Grammy used to make sauce from scratch, using the tomatoes from her garden and can it so we could have it all year until tomatoes were back in season. It was so good. She used to go the Italian market on 53rd and get handmade noodles and everything. Then she used to go to the butcher on 79th and get the leanest ground beef, so when she cooked it, the grease wouldn't make the sauce separate. We used to have it every Wednesday. I can almost smell it."

Harvey watched Mike remember his childhood, a smile on his young face. It wasn't often that Mike talked of his past; he'd only mentioned his parents once and rarely talked of his grandmother unless something was wrong. Of course, Harvey didn't talk of his past much either, always managing to upset Mike so much of him avoiding his questions that Mike forgot that he gave a damn about his lover's childhood. The makeup sex was just a bonus.

"Why Wednesdays?" Harvey questioned as Mike reclaimed his seat at the bar, hands in his lap. Mike looked from Harvey when he answered, that alone told Harvey it was something to do with Mike's parents.

"Grammy knew I loved that spaghetti," Mike said quietly. "My parents died on a Wednesday, I hated that day, every Wednesday was torture for me, my brain flooded by slowly blurring mental pictures of them. She made it on Wednesdays to make me feel better, to remind me that there was someone who still loved me in the world." Mike swallowed, bracing for Harvey to laugh.

Harvey was still turned to the stove and effectively hid the tear that escaped his eye on behalf of his boyfriend. Mike hated when Harvey cried for him claiming, 'I've cried over it enough for both of us, save them for something worth the fuss.' Mike never understood that he was well worth the fuss and always would be. Harvey turned to the finally boiling water and dumped the pasta in, giving it a stir with the noodle fork.

"I should make it one of these nights." Mike said offhandedly.

"That would be nice," agreed Harvey.

Mike got up and got plates out of the cabinet and went to fetch silverware from the drawer across the kitchen. "I wonder if Grammy would give me the recipe."

Harvey smiled, "I'm sure she would if you asked nicely."

Mike set the plates on the bar, "I'm not the one who has problems with asking nicely, Harvey."

Harvey turned to sink to drain the pasta, brushing past Mike on the way, "Face it, you love it when I go all drill sergeant on you."

Mike laughed, "Drill sergeants don't use so much hair gell."

Harvey shook his head and smiled. "Their hair doesn't need it."

"Neither does yours," Mike argued.

Harvey 'hmm'-ed at his boyfriend and gently pushed past him to get the plates, fishing the limp noodles out of the pot and depositing them on the plates. Mike watched Harvey scoop out two portions of noodles and sauce each and followed his lover into the living room where Harvey deposited the plates across from each other. Mike fetched his drink of choice from the kitchen, a Natural Lite, and quickly grabbed Harvey's sweating scotch glass from beside the sink before sinking into one of Harvey's overly expensive dining room chairs. Harvey grimaced at Mike's can of beer as he set it on the table.

"I will never understand how you drink that swill."

Mike shrugged as he took a gulp, "Oh, get your nose out of the air, I can see your brain from here."

Harvey snorted as he twirled some noodles onto his fork. "I'm just saying, I can afford to drink fine single malt scotch every night, I can buy you better beer than that."

Mike watched his fingers wipe at the condensation from his can. "It's cheap. I bought it when I was in college and nearly broke. I guess it kind of reminds me of being in college, reminds me that I was literally _this_ close to having the world by its balls." Mike holds up his fingers just a centimeter apart before dropping his hand back to the table and shrugs again. "Old habits die hard too. Get used to drinking enough of these a night and it gets kind of hard to stop."

Harvey watched Mike from his seat, playing with his food but not really eating, while Mike's plate is untouched. "You're a wealth of information today."

Mike smiles slightly, not looking up. "I realized there was nothing worth hiding anymore, you already know the worst of it, I was addicted to pot, I cheated for people with performance anxiety on important, life-altering tests and I had a slight alcohol issue after I was kicked out of college. I mean, if you haven't left me after hearing all that, I don't think I could ever have done anything bad enough _for_ you to leave."

Harvey watched Mike, he was his lover, his boyfriend, his best friend, his associate and the love of his life. It baffled him that Mike could think do little of him as to assume that hearing of the many pot holes in Mike's path to Harvey would drive him away, and then Harvey realized that Mike hadn't thought this up all on his own, the world had taught him that people did that to the people they love, Mike's best friend had sealed that theory in, made Mike sure that he would be abandoned for his mistakes. Harvey felt anger rear its head at the thought of people throwing Mike away like a piece of garbage just because he had been young and stupid and just trying to survive. Everyone was on that same path at some point, until something came to knock you off it and everyone in the world was content to just let Mike keep on walking. Not Harvey.

"I'm not going anywhere." Harvey stated, simply, taking Mike's hand in his own. Mike smiled softly at him and turned his attention to his plate.

"I don't think I can it this, Harvey." Mike said, wrinkling his nose.

Harvey laughed, but rose to walk around the table and took the seat next to his boyfriend. "Here, let me help."

Harvey took Mike's plate and twisted a bite's worth of noodles and sauce on his fork before popping it in his own mouth and chewing slowly. Then, Harvey grabbed Mike's face and kissed him, slowly and thoroughly. When they pulled apart, Mike swallowed the food that was shoved in his mouth.

"First, that was _so_ unsanitary and second, I guess the sauce isn't really that bad if you feed it to me that way."

Harvey smiled and began preparing another bite while Mike took another drink from his beer. Needless to say, dinner lasted longer than it normally did that night.


End file.
